Two Italian scientists have just won a prize for proving with “vigorous statistical study” that luck is more important than hard work or talent in how successful a person is. To me this seems a lot like proving that people who urinate when they have a full bladder are more comfortable afterwards than those that don’t. We all know it – but has it been rigorously studied?

It would come as no surprise to classic Greeks who saw protagonists driven by fate, or to Calvinists who thought all was predestined by God, or to aristocrats and kings who believed the Mandate of Heaven let them justify anything they might do.

The real problem, of course, is that the modern world has swallowed the mythology of meritocracy hook line and sinker. Cream rises, the best rule, the most deserving become rich. And the less discussed other side of the coin, which is that any poverty or failures are entirely your own fault.

This has a corrosive effect on social relations. Those who have done well feel they have worked harder or smarter than everyone else and smugly congratulate themselves while insulating their lives from the rest of society. Those who have not succeeded in spite of hard work and talent feel that someone somewhere has cheated them of their legitimate triumph.

Can a study change this? Of course not. But one should always be willing to consider that “there but for the grace of God go I.”

In the long run nothing is normal. Even in the moment it is only a pleasant useful illusion that allows us to smooth out the chaotic flow of infinite events.

I am as guilty as anyone, of course. And in the short run it is often applicable and helpful. But I know how things change. When I was much younger I needed diapers and could not speak. In the future I may be so again. But right now it is normal for me to use bathrooms and talk too much.

Trying to apply normal to concepts is even more tenuous. What is normal climate or geological drift, or species distribution? What is normal hawk behavior? Most of the time such uses of normal become so encrusted with exceptions that they hardly serve a valid purpose. I do know it is absolutely insane to set any normal as a goal. We can never “get back to normal.” We can never “make things more normal.” It is a vapid politicized slogan promising fog and smoke.

Most people crave a certain level of security and stability, especially in routine daily life. Finding that things tend to repeat in certain ways most of the time becomes what we consider normal. And we are often upset when that inevitably changes.

Normal in our frantic existence is never normal for long.

We can remember the past to help us modify present behavior to control results in the future. This is obviously a successful survival tool, very well developed in human brains. But it can also be used wrongly.

If I ate something that made me sick, I should have enough sense not to eat the same thing again. And so on for many events which occur repetitively throughout our lives. Useful and no problem except that sometimes our memories and evaluations may be incorrect.

But another type of memory is more destructive if used too much. I will label this the “Helen of Troy” memory, well documented in classic Greek drama. “Gee,” says Priam gazing at the ruins of Troy, “if I had never abducted Helen none of this would have happened.” In American terms, of course, it is the coulda woulda shoulda syndrome. All this does is fuel an often destructive narrative as a victim of circumstance about failures in the present. And it is relatively useless in any objective way, although it might help our mental state.

The past is gone. I may be offered the same food again. But Priam will never again be a rich young prince tempted to abduct a beautiful young bride from a vengeful old husband.

You may claim “”well at least we can learn from his error” which is of course the purpose of literature. But from our own memories, rarely if ever is this very useful.

An out-of-the-box reading would be that Socrates nibbles away at problems, while Plato goes for grand all-encompassing solutions. I much prefer nibbles, not only aesthetically, but also because they apply in real life and all conditions.

Questioning every little thing can be paralyzing, of course, but it is often useful. “Why should I do this?” “Why are things this way?” Honest questions with honest answers allow us to deal with all the unique and contradictory problems of life, messy though they may be

But questioning everything as part of a forced logical trail to a predetermined ideal answer is fatiguing and often useless. “Why_because” ends up in a swamp of exceptions _ “nobody should be killed _ except…” is typical. And the answer is often wrong and useless except for reinforcing obsessive unthinking behavior and standards

Much better to take small bites. The universe and its ways and the future itself are unknowable and mostly obscure. Much of the vast sweep of such issues are irrelevant to how I eat breakfast. But it is also always useful to question what you are having for breakfast and why, even if only for a moment.

So hooray for nibbles, which, unfortunately, have fallen out of favor in this era of grand internet conspiracy theories.

The caste system reasonably explains that you are what you are as a result of how you lived a previous life. Christianity claimed God granted divine right to kings and protected the virtuous and meek with rewards or punishments to follow death. Other cultures relied on bloodlines or race to explain social position.

An overwhelming number of people at all times and everywhere remain mired in exactly the social stratum into which they are born. Philosophy and religion seek to explain why. There are exceptions that prove the rule, but by actual count they are few and far between. And movement is restricted _ the old Chinese proverb about “peasant, landlord, businessman, artist, peasant” has a ring of normal truth.

No matter the mythology, such ideas provide a degree of comfort to the vast majority of us stuck with being who we are and were. Only a peculiarly depressing American credo _ born of immigrants and empty land _ declares that one is completely responsible for social position: anyone could have been anything with enough properly applied hard work.

That is laughably false when examined closely. But it is a great comfort to the wealthy elite, just as the divine right of kings and aristocratic blue blood were in the old days. Grants them a freedom to be smugly cruel to everyone else

According to Gibbon, the Roman Empire was falling for over 400 years, and the eastern part ruled by Constantinople for over almost a thousand years after that. Western Europe endured centuries of warfare and chaos from the Middle Ages through _ well, to be honest _ now.

In all those times of decline, apparently sports were always important. Constantinople was consumed with horse racing at the Hippodrome until the very end, Rome had its bread and circuses. The Middle Ages had jousting. And minor games like dice and hand fights have been popular everywhen and everywhere.

The thing is that sports are an extension of philosophy, basic components of the universe made manifest. Rules and how to break them, referees and bribery, training, fair play, cheating and the role of luck. All these are demonstrated in sports in a less destructive way than they are in warfare or life itself.  And outcomes are nicely temporary.

For some fanatics, in all ages, sports may become a consuming religion. For others it provides a gateway into tribal initiation. Spectators can be as obsessed as participants.

Philosophy, in fact, can learn a lot from sports. The role of reality intervening in goals often has only passing acquaintance with pure logic and reason. Something to remember.

Robert Heinlein wrote 50’s science fiction which I devoured as an adolescent. For a while he became a countercultural icon for Stranger in a Strange Land, the story of a naive young man from Mars who could not comprehend (“Grok”) anything. An innocent, sweet, rational person. Of course, this simply channeled similar traveler-from-afar social critiques popular since before the French Revolution.

Today, I realize that I no longer need to travel through space to visit an incomprehensible civilization. Time travel _ in the guise of years passing and me growing old _ has delivered me into a culture that I can hardly “grok”.

I disregard the technological marvels. All the best satires and novels always did. The strangeness is in the attitudes and habits of people. I have great difficulty grokking the fact that people incredibly wealthy and free feel so angry and victimized. That well-educated folks nearly in control of the world are reverting to feral behaviors. Oh, I could go on, but the complaints are common enough among the elderly to be quite well known.

So I sit in my living room, stranger in a strange land, in amazement and incredulity at the social behaviors around me. I just do not grok at all.

At 75, I have no bucket lists. I’ve had a fortunate life, experienced many things, and do not need to travel far and wide seeking novelty. I am content to draw on what I have already done to enhance all that I encounter now.

For example, the other day I strolled alongside a field bursting with six-foot-high stalks of wheat under a cloud puffed blue sky, wet green grass underfoot. I was as thrilled to observe a monarch butterfly then flit overhead as I would have been to view a snow leopard through binoculars in Tibet.

The trick, I find, is to have been deeply enough immersed in one experience that you can easily call on its emotions and perceptions to transform the ordinary. A field in a park becomes exotic. A town’s streets charm like world city boulevards. Any flower or leaf is as amazing as any on an Amazon cruise.

The flip side of “1000 things” is to become blase at the “1 thing.” There is in fact no time to do or see everything.

I contend there is no need. Deeply lived different experiences broaden the outlook, but too many dull the palate.

My quotidian world is infinite and wondrous while easily within reach and budget. I would never give up the relatively few amazing “things” I have done, but I feel little drive to seek any more. Ah, but to enjoy each moment here and now …

I am sitting in end-summer heat listening to a flowered fountain at a lovely walled garden in a public park. No one else here at the moment. I love such moments in such places, and marvel at how our culture increasingly discounts them.

My wife or brother-in-law, for example, no sooner see something then they want to possess it. Exclusivity is happiness. If there are beautiful roses down the street, we must have beautiful roses on our own property.

Collectors go one step further and seek to squirrel away unique items for their own pleasure only. Why? I have never quite understood. Quiet privacy, yes, or even convenient access to a frequently seen item. But I get no warm and fuzzy feeling from the thought that I alone have this.

A few of my friends go even further, and love to list experiences that I have not had and never will. As if seeing such a thing, eating at such a place, doing such an adventure is a mark of superiority.

Honestly, I do not fit into this culture. I am grateful for access to this beauty. Happy to help pay for it. Content that others use it also. Owning it for my own exclusive use would be criminal diminution.

We are a social species. We should encourage our social sharing. Wonderful parks help us do so.

When I was young, boys often dreamed of being Alexander, Caesar, or Napoleon. But we soon realized that, tragically, such opportunities were unlikely to come our way. Fortunately, Western capitalism seemed to allow us to emulate Edison or Carnegie or Rockefeller if we were simply smart and worked hard enough. The more intelligent among us probably were content to be like their father or some local hero.

Then we grew up and, alas, became just the adults we were. Choices were necessary, sacrifices had to be made, risks were taken, fate often intervened. Many of us, I think, were fortunate to merely survive and ended up working hard at accepting whatever life had dished out.

The worst trap was the same for both hedonists and workaholics. That was a belief that tomorrow could always be different. Make a lot of money now, worry about friends and family and fun later. Or vice versa

I suppose I could have been someone else. Like everyone I have had dreams and regrets. But as I aged I put more time into decorating the situation I actually inhabit, tweaking life rather than hoping to start anew.

Fortunately, we have literature and its extensions. We can actually be one of those alternative people for a while. All we need to do is immerse ourselves in the media. There is little more fortunate than having a mind enabled for such “fake” experiences.